Call for Papers: "Literature & Fashion" Panel
RMMLA Conference, Calgary Alberta, October 4-6, 2007.
 
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The focus of the 2007 RMMLA panel on "Literature & Fashion" is open regarding genre and period; however, we are specifically interested in papers that explore the "materiality" of clothing in shaping the context of identity and in shaping the practices that continually [trans]form identity--or, adversely, impede its transformation or essentialize it--for either/both wearer and observer.
 
* performance (in any of its many [dis]guises)
* the process/act of dressing--or of being dressed
* cross-dressing
* how one 'wears' one's gender, class, age, sexuality, etc. and the prejudices this wearing of identity invites
* the relationship between clothing and 'passing' (racial, class, gender, sexual, age, religious, etc.)
* not having the proper clothes, being stripped of one's clothing or unclothed, undressing as an unmasking of identity/ies; clothing as "trappings," being trapped in/by clothes, etc.
 
Papers may also address how any of the following material, physical practices are explored in literary texts:
 
* shopping/window shopping; shopping as flannerie or failure/inability to shop as anti-flannerie/failed flannerie
* dressing, being wrongly or poorly dressed, cross-dressing
* mending, sewing, laundering, selling, modeling or other forms of labor related to fashion and clothing
* apprising the dressed self in mirrors, windows; voyeurism, other forms of surveillance/self-surveillance related to dressing, clothing and fashion
* buying/wearing used clothing, hand-me down clothing; instances of threadbare, torn, ill-fitting, or dirty clothing.
 
Papers that explore how the materiality of clothing and/or fashion operate on multiple levels in one work or across several works of fiction and/or poetry are especially encouraged.
 
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The "Literature and Fashion" panel will ultimately feature three or four proposals that are associationally related or congruent in some fashion. The deadline for submitting is March 1, 2007. Please send proposals of 250-300 words, and a short bio containing your contact information (as Microsoft word attachments) to:
 
Catherine R. Mintler
"Literature and Fashion" Panel Chair
cmintler_at_unr.edu
 
Notificaiton of acceptance will be sent out by March 15, 2007.
 
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Catherine R. Mintler
Assistant Director, Core Writing Program
Department of English (0098)
University of Nevada, Reno
Reno, Nevada 89557-0098
775/682-6381; cmintler_at_unr.edu
 
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Received on Sun Jan 28 2007 - 15:00:23 EST